Palmetto Park Rd. Gets Priority, Commissioners Say

July 31, 1985|By Fred Lowery, Transportation Writer

Palmetto Park Road will be open across Florida`s Turnpike west of Boca Raton before a crossing opens on Southwest 18th Street, even if it means barricading the 18th Street crossing, Palm Beach County commissioners vowed Tuesday.

That promise should ease the fears of residents north of the Hillsboro Canal and west of the turnpike, said Commissioner Karen Marcus, who had predicted the neighborhood would be overrun with cars if the Southwest 18th Street crossing were completed first.

``There are concerns about 18th Street opening sooner, and what might happen in that neighborhood if it does,`` Marcus said.

While both projects, along with the Lyons Road bridge over the Hillsboro Canal in the same area, are included in the county`s five-year road program, County Engineer Herb Kahlert said construction scheduling calls for the Palmetto Park crossing to be completed about 90 days before Southwest 18th Street.

``But if the projects get out of sync,`` Commissioner Dorothy Wilken told Kahlert, ``you should just not open 18th until Palmetto Park is open. We ought to offer that assurance. The neighborhood is concerned, and the city (of Boca Raton) is concerned.``

Commissioner Ken Spillias, though, insisted any attempt to set a construction schedule now would be inappropriate, since the commission has not formally approved the road construction program.

Objections have been raised in both the city and the area to the west about both the Southwest 18th Street crossing and the Lyons Road bridge, Spillias said, and the project list could be changed by commissioners before it is formally approved.

``I still want some more public input before I make up my mind,`` Spillias said.

Engineers have said that the three projects are an integral part of a long- range program to ease traffic congestion in that part of the county.

In the five-year program, however, there is another proposed turnpike crossing, at Yamato Road, that residents and city officials have said would be more desirable than Southwest 18th Street.

But Kahlert has said that project is at least a couple of years away because of time needed for planning, right of way purchases and scheduling.